WSIB hikes 2006 rates

TORONTO, (July 28, 2005) — Despite Ontario truckers’ best efforts to stop it, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) has announced an average increase of 3 percent for 2006.

General trucking will go from $5.68 (per $100 of payroll) to $5.84, an increase of 2.8 percent; warehousing remains exactly the same at $2.73, while courier services actually decreases by 3.1 percent from $2.62 to $2.54.

While it isn’t happy with any hike, the Ontario Trucking Association says trucking and related rate groups have faired somewhat better than average. Even with the modest size of the increase, OTA says it will continue to work to have the government force the WSIB to reconsider its decision to raise rates.

The OTA has toned its message down slightly from last week when it blasted the WSIB in a letter written in “the strongest possible terms.” In the letter, the OTA said that any “payroll tax hike” was unacceptable to the trucking industry.

The WSIB has suggested that it would like to raise rates by an average of 3 percent a year for the next five years. “While this year’s hike may be small, the cumulative impact of the Board’s strategy of raising rates slowly but consistently will be a 20-25 percent increase in rates over the course of the next five years,” OTA said in a recent release.


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